Inner Vision is a weekly digest connecting the dots between great everyday objects and the cultures and techniques behind living well with them. Here, we move beyond recommendations and ratings, because just as important as knowing what to buy is knowing what’s possible using the products you’ve purchased.

New Jack City: Apple bid adieu yet again to another standard—the headphone jack—on Wednesday in the company’s obsessive commitment to reductive design. Now seems an opportune moment to stop and recognize the remarkably old technology we’ve relied on long all these years, since well before the ubiquity of mobile devices.

A Price to Pay: “…. when we forget the simple things, we can no longer pass them on. The chisels become can openers and tools for chipping concrete with. When we buy disposables we lose our potency. When sandpaper replaces the cutting edge and plastic faced pressed fibreboard replaces wood, reality and skilled work is deemed an excess … comforting ourselves that what we bought was really cheap without realising that we no longer have anything to pass on that has much of any worth.”

Naw, I’m Good: Undoubtedly, lines will form for the latest iteration of the iPhone, a phone that continues to improve on its strengths while addressing a few of its weaknesses. But really it’s a device of evolutionary—not revolutionary—design. Like digital cameras, most every premium smartphone today is quite good, and perhaps a result of this realization, there’s a growing consensus that good enough is indeed good enough.

Do the Right Thing: There’s something both frustrating and inherently wrong about a system that rewards debt and punishes responsible financial sagacity, a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” consumer’s conundrum. With “89 percent of Gen Xers and 86 percent of millennials” currently carrying debt, it’s no wonder there’s a growing trend to keep credit cards out of wallets and purses. Getting a grip on credit-score formulation and how to manipulate it back into your favor should be mandatory reading.

The Salt’s Cure:There’s a thin line between love and hate, a sentiment applicable to under- or over-seasoning a steak with salt. Saveur recommends erring on the side of being judicious with that sodium chloride to ensure juiciness after your steak has done its time on the grill or cast iron pan.

Repetitive Reasoning:Among all the tidbits related to productivity, the one that “sang” out to me was this nugget: “In her book, On Repeat: How Music Plays the Mind, psychologist Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis explains why listening to music on repeat improves focus. When you’re listening to a song on repeat, you tend to dissolve into the song, which blocks out mind wandering (let your mind wander while you’re away from work!).”

Hiding Out in the Open: Instead of hiding behind an ad blocker, AdNauseam—a browser extension available for Chrome, Firefox, and Opera—allows users to conceal themselves out in the open. While you browse undisturbed, it clicks in the background on every blocked ad as an obfuscating countermeasure against advertiser tracking.

Love Thyself:“Criticism is always easier than constructive solutions.” What technologist and artist Jaron Lanier said in reference to the Internet back in 2010 is equally applicable to how we deal with our own failings and shortcomings. So ease up on beating yourself over your mistakes and treat yo self!

The Secondhand Silhouette: “If you want to do real reconstructive surgery on your suit, you have to be prepared to spend upwards of two hundred dollars … a Brioni suit at a secondhand shop that’s in good condition, spending $300 to make that look and feel like a $5,000 suit is totally worth it as far as I’m concerned.”

You Don’t Know Squat:The squat is arguably the simplest movement offering the greatest muscular benefit in return. Performable by nearly anyone and executable anywhere, everyone should squat. But one squat does not fit all. Some of us are wide squatters. Others of us perform better with our feet close together. Ultimately, your hip mobility will determine which squat squad you belong to.

Got an interesting story, link, resource, or how-to you think we should check out for consideration for our next issue of Inner Vision? Drop us a line with the subject “Inner Vision,” and we’ll take a look!

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The true price of something is to be considered by dividing its cost over the hours you'll use it.